Commas, dashes, and slashes — use a style guide to get them right
Eleanor Meecham | February 28, 2018
Good writing is made up of many elements. You need great content, clear headings, plain words, and engaging layout. But one thing that’s often overlooked is style. Style is the art of keeping all the details consistent — from spelling and punctuation to quotations and numbers.
To style your words the right way (and the same way every time) you need a good style guide. We’ve just updated ours. It’s concise but comprehensive advice for anyone who writes at work.
What’s in our style guide
The Write Style Guide tells you things like:
- how to use punctuation marks
- which words to capitalise
- when to use numerals and when to spell out numbers as words
- how to choose and use a referencing style
- how to write well for your readers.
Buy The Write Style Guide — in e-book or hardcopy
If you’re not sure what’s wrong here, you really need our style guide! Original image by jasper33 / public domain
What’s changed from past editions
We’ve changed our style guide quite a lot since our last printing 4 years ago. You’ll find more advice, better examples, and links to online tools that will help you do complex things quickly and simply.
For example, we’ve added sections on:
- macrons (those little punctuation marks that show long vowels in te reo Māori)
- slashes
- plurals
- greetings and farewells
- names of places and organisations
- copyright and Creative Commons.
Among other things, we’ve also added more advice on how to:
- place apostrophes
- punctuate quotations
- use italics to differentiate between print and web publications
- handle names with irregular capitalisation (iPod, eBay)
- use respectful language, such as gender-neutral job titles and appropriate pronouns
- write descriptive headings and meaningful hyperlink text
- make your words plain, concise, and active.
The Write Style Guide is an essential writing tool for anyone who writes at work. Even if you’re ‘just’ writing emails!